Xueyan (Juno) Sun

Juno studies the changing filmic representations of China and the Chinese from the 1910s to the 1970s while exploring the historical, political, and social reasons behind these cinematic changes. The primary sources she uses are the films and their original reviews, as well as MAPPDA and PCA files from the Margaret Herrick Library in Los Angeles. Other materials she might draw on include the original scripts, press books, and government documents (for example, the Office of War Information files in the National Archives and the Chinese Nationalist Censor Board files from the Second Historical Archives of China in Nanjing). The OWI materials are important to her research on Hollywood propaganda films during the Second World War; and the Chinese Censor Board materials (as well as the correspondence between the Chinese consul and the studios from PCA collections) are crucial to her study of the political influences on filmic representations of the Chinese before 1949. Juno is passionate about her research because it reflects US-China relations from a unique perspective. It also helps to explain how and why China and the Chinese people are presented the way they are in contemporary global media.

PhD

Supervisor: Melvyn StokesWorking title: 'Representations of China and the Chinese people in Hollywood films from the 1910s to the 1970s'Expected completion date: 2020

Conference papers and presentations

'The Second World War and a "New" China on Screen', presented at both Entertainment, Politics and Culture, IHR History Lab annual postgraduate conference, 6 June 2018; and Methods and Practices in American Studies, Kent 2nd Americanist Symposium, University of Kent, 11 June 2018.

'Representation of Nature: A Romanticized View of the Land during the Great Depression', Nature's Past: Historical Perspectives on a Contested Concept, UCL History postgraduate conference, London, June 2017

Teaching

PGTA 2018-19 on the BA module 'Youth and Youth Movements in the Modern World' at the Institute of Education.